are these pepper seedlings ready for planting? (with photo)

are these pepper seedlings ready for planting? (with photo)

Sun Jun 15, 2008 1:20 pm

these are sweet bell peppers, 4 colors I think.. I really should start keeping a journal with dates, because I can never keep my experiments straight.. I have no idea how old these are, but the tallest are 3-4 inches.

I started the seeds in that tray on my patio, so they've actually been outside the whole time. They get a few hours of sun (through the screen) daily, and I have had the top off for at least a week. I do worry about putting them outside while I'm at work, because we have been getting nasty storms in the early evening lately. I have another section of patio facing west where they could get a bit more sun, though still screened. I read about putting them in the yard on a table with some type of umbrella or something to shade them just from the noon sun, but if I rigged something cheesy, a bad thunderboomer would probably knock it over. So I'm not sure what to do now.. Then again, I have more plants than I have room for, so maybe I should plant them all and let survival of the fittest do its thing and hope half of them make it?

Btw, what does leggy mean in this context? and thanks for the tip on burying them deepy.. I will definitely do that

"Leggy" has to do with the length of the stem vs. the number and breadth of the leaves.

Longer stem/fewer & not branched-out leaves = leggy

"Leggy" can also be applied to roses, BTW, if they have esp. thin canes with few leaves.

But in the case of the peppers, this additional stem length will give you more depth to stabilize the plant when you move them to larger pots.

I know those thunderstorms (graduated HS in Tampa--Leto). If the TStorms are coming in off the Gulf, a west-facing patio might not be much shelter. Can you attach shade cloth to the upper half of the west side of your patio to help break the force of the wind vs. the plants? I'm sure somebody else will have more ideas, but this is mine off the top of my head.

They don't pop out of that tray anywhere near as easy as I thought, btw..

Try sticking your thumb under the cell and push up gently with it just like you would if you had an old fashioned push up ice cream in your hand. That usually works for me. You're right though, they don't pop out all that easily. I've also used cheese spread knives to try to gently work around the sides to loosen them up but normally the problem is the roots coming out the bottom that hang them up.